Skye Gyngell, Australian Michelin-star chef, dies
The Sydney-born “natural truth teller” overcame a 20-year history of addiction to create a mini-empire of cookbooks and media columns, while managing a string of restaurants across the UK.
Skye Gyngell, the first Australian female chef to receive a Michelin star and one of the only recipients of the coveted award, describing it as a professional curse, has died. He was 62 years old.
“We are deeply saddened to share the news that Skye Gyngell passed away in London on November 22, surrounded by her family and loved ones,” the family said in a statement.
“Skye was a culinary visionary who influenced generations of chefs and growers around the world to think about food and its connection to the land. She leaves behind a remarkable legacy and is an inspiration to us all. The family requests privacy at this time.”
Born in Sydney in 1963 into a family of broadcasting royalty – his father Bruce Gyngell was the first person to appear on Australian television when it was launched in 1956 – Gyngell shrugged off his law studies in Sydney for a professional life in European kitchens.
Gyngell’s lightness on production launched a dilapidated cafe in London’s Petersham Nurseries into the Michelin orbit in 2011. Gyngell has built a mini-empire of cookbooks and media columns from this platform, while managing a stable of three restaurants in the UK.
Talented and irreverent, Gyngell was a natural truth-teller who was unafraid to call it quits in his adopted city. He once described the food at popular Mayfair restaurant The Wolseley as “unapologetically awful” and praised Nigella Lawson’s cooking while questioning her sexy on-screen presence: “She’s a smart woman… why is she doing this?” Celebrity chef Marco Pierre White even used it to promote broth cubes.
The media exaggerated the issue; While an article discussed whether Gyngell was “Courtney’s love of cooking”, London Telegram He described it as the “Wizard of Oz” for transforming an old greenhouse at Petersham Nurseries into a kitchen space.
When Gyngell took on the Petersham Nurseries project in 2004, he encountered challenges including dirty ground and standing water outside the warehouses and on the path to the kitchen. In the early days, he brought his own pots and pans from home, dipping them into a trusty toolkit of roasted spices, infused oils and tea smoke. It wasn’t long before word spread, as nursery school patrons vied for seats with Mick Jagger and fashion designer Stella McCartney as they devoured plates of rabbit with roasted fennel and bowls of cauliflower soup with pickled pears.
Gyngell always acknowledged the multicultural nature of his hometown when shaping his food. Sydney’s food scene, which emerged in the 1970s, was accelerated by his upbringing in a household where his father followed a healthy macrobiotic diet.
The dual paths he followed in his early life were less healthy. He reportedly dropped out of his private school after smoking marijuana at age 14; He started experimenting with heroin at the age of 17. None of this slowed Gyngell’s academic progress; His next stop was the University of Sydney.
“[Skye] He was the smartest person in the family, incredibly well-read, keen to learn and would try anything,” said David Gyngell, former CEO of Channel Nine. Good Weekend Magazine “His food is as honest and real as he is. In an industry full of egos, he has neither pomp nor elegance and does not compromise on quality.”
Gyngell found a part-time job at a restaurant in Sydney and, inspired by her female chef, culinary life soon trumped university. He began his training at La Varenne cookery school in Paris at the age of 19, then worked at George V and the two-star Michelin restaurant Dodin-Bouffant in Paris, before moving to London, spending a year under chef Anton Mosimann at the rigorous Dorchester, and then working for rising culinary star Fergus Henderson.
Gyngell struggled with drug addiction, curbing it after her father’s death in 2000, and channeling her energy into food to raise her two now-adult children, Holly and Evie. With a Michelin star in his bag, Gyngell’s career was in clear skies before his unfiltered honesty found a voice in 2012, surging in the wake of restaurant complaints from Michelin enthusiasts more accustomed to polished surroundings and sparkling toilets than the rustic Petersham Nurseries café.
“Okay, this is the worst thing I can say: If I ever own another restaurant, I pray we don’t get any stars,” Gyngell said.
While he stated that he was honored with the award, the publicity of his comments did not stop his rise. After leaving Petersham Nurseries in 2012, Gyngell was appointed kitchen manager at several restaurants at Heckfield Place in Hampshire. He opened Spring at Somerset House in 2014.
Typically Gyngell carved out new territory. Spring was London’s first single-use plastic-free restaurant. Gyngell’s heroes were female chefs: Maggie Beer and Stephanie Alexander in Australia, Sally Clarke in London, and Alice Waters in California. And she defended women in their own kitchens.
Privately, the “freckled” girl from sunny Sydney was facing a more serious battle: in 2024, the lump on her neck was diagnosed with Merkel cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer. It had a long history of other skin cancers, a legacy of ’70s beach culture.
Gyngell did not hide and wrote an article in May. Financial Times It provided a better understanding of the surgery, radiotherapy, and loss of taste he endured. The story was insightful, heartfelt and quite beautiful; a reflection of his refreshingly honest approach to life and cooking.
Fellow and former contributing international editor Conde Nast Traveler and contributing New York Times Style Magazine, Enjoy your meal And Finance TimesDavid Prior called Gyngell “the most internationally significant female Australian conductor of her generation”.
“Skye was unique. She had a chef’s palate and an artist’s palette, and these twin, exquisite talents came together in food…” he said. “He carried an ethereal, mercurial lightness that was often at odds with the boldness and unwavering purity of vision that led him to rewrite the rule book of London dining more than once.
“It was this interplay that made him so seductive, what placed him at the center of a movement that he never sought to lead and yet undeniably succeeded in his own quiet, uncompromising way.”
